DURING SUBSEQUENT VISITS TO NEPAL, I WOULD CONTINUE TO HEAR stories about the power of these challenge grants. One of our projects, Himalaya Primary School, was located on the outskirts of Kathmandu, in a poor community whose economy depended on the local brick factories. The local soil was conducive to brickmaking, and six soot-belching factories surrounded the village. On a site visit to check on progress, I met the headmaster. He proudly recounted how he'd visited each factory to ask for support in building a new school. He reminded each factory owner that the workers’ ‘wages were so low that parents could not afford to contribute to the challenge grant. But Room to Read required each community to coinvest, so he proposed an innovative solution: each factory owner would donate 10,000 bricks, and Room to Read’s money would be used to buy cement, window frames, desks, and to pay for skilled labor to erect the walls. His sales strategy succeeded, and once again I was blown away by the ingenuity of the communities with which we partnered.
Two days after my visit to Himalaya Primary School, Dinesh took me into the foothills of the mountains west of Kathmandu. Our destination was the village of Katrak, which perched on a hillside overlooking verdant rice fields. Dinesh parked our rented truck along the side of the road, and with a head nod and a shout of “Jhane ho. Orolo” (Let’s go! Uphill), he announced to me that we had a steep hike in front of us.
At 8 a.m. the sun was already burning down on us, and my pace slowed as I stopped for applications of sun cream and gulps from my water bottle. On frequent occasions women with large bags hoisted onto their backs rushed past me, heading up the trail. I could not hope to match their pace, even though I was carrying only my water bottle and a Nikon. I asked Dinesh if they were returning from the market. He laughed and asked whether I realized that these women were carrying cement. I must have looked perplexed, so he explained.
When the local government of the village of Katrak requested Room to Read’s help, Dinesh and Yadav (our civil engineer in charge of the School Room program) said that they would provide half the resources if the village could come up with the other half. The head of the village development committee told our team that the village was poor, with more than 95 percent of parents living on subsistence farming. What little economy the village had was simple barter, and as a result few parents could afford to put money into the project.
Yadav explained that contributions other than cash would count toward the challenge grant. As an example, parents could
prove their commitment to education and the new school by donating labor.
The women we saw this morning had responded to the call. Each morning, a group of them would wake up before sunrise, walk an hour downhill to the roadside where the cement bags were being stored, and then walk 90 minutes back up to the village. The bags weighed 50 kilos—110 pounds—and some mothers were making the trip twice in one day. Dinesh reminded me that this was a farming village, and that the women would still have to spend their day in the fields.
We crested the hill and on the building site saw 20 men, presumably the fathers, digging the foundation and beginning to put up the walls. I asked one of the mothers if I could try picking up her bag of cement. I nearly threw my back out as I struggled to get the bag above my waist. The mothers were greatly entertained, and the group around me grew larger as I failed to impress them as Hercules.
I outweighed these women by at least 50 pounds. Most of them probably survived on two bowls of rice and lentils per day. Such was their belief in the power of education to provide their children with a brighter future that they were willing to make any sacrifice. I felt inspired and vowed to work even harder to find the funding to enable more of these challenge grants. I also vowed that I'd get to the gym to lift weights a bit more often.
